Heart of Black
by MaxRide05
Summary: 1st EVER Cygnus/Luna:I call it CygLu! Cygnus&Luna. They were both of the heavens, incandescent and of night. He was anchored to her, shining when she did though her light was not her own but reflected from that of the sun's. Or whatever load of poetic spiel was appropriate for this moment. He didn't care. He could still taste her on his tongue.


**Disclaimer: I do not own HP.**

**Heart of Black**

"Oh, darling, you _must_ come hear this." Across the crowded room Druella called to him with an elegant hand wave. Her loud trilling drawl, like acerbic poison to his ears no matter how soft she tried to make her voice sound, was a sharp contrast to her pinched, haughty expression.

Cygnus sighed. He could give a Hippogriff's backside about what so-and-so saw happen at such-and-such a place. He walked to the door that lead out to the hallway, caught Druella's eye then gestured to the door beside him.

Freedom. Sweet, sweet freedom - how he longed for it.

She pursed her rouged lips but nodded all the same. She couldn't have stopped him anyway. He was her husband, her _superior_.

_She_ obeyed him_;_ _not_ the other way around.

He was climbing the stairs to the room he had been staying in leading up to the gathering when he heard a noise coming from the landing to his back. He halted, secured his wand in his hand, hidden by his long sleeve, and then stepped off the stairs, onto the landing.

He tugged at the collar of his robes as the temperature increased in that one movement. He swept down the hall, coming to a stop when he found the source of the disturbance.

It was a young woman who was slumped against the wall between two cabinets full of Orion's – and maybe Walburga's – Black memorabilia.

Had she not heard of a brush, or perhaps a comb? Was his first thought upon seeing her. From what he could see aside from her mass of dirty blonde hair she was wearing some sort of one piece trouser and top thing.

_A mudblood?_ He pondered, narrowing his eyes. Not possible, he dismissed with his next thought. Orion had warded his house against their kind. Somehow – he _really_ must learn how...

Magic rolled off her in waves. It made his skin prickle. She didn't look alive. He was just about to nudge her with the toe of his boot when her head snapped up.

The expression on her pale face was one of surprise, though he had to wonder if that was because of the situation or if she always looked like that. She blinked at him as if coming out of a daze. When her wide, pale eyes met his her cheeks flooded red. Still keeping eye contact with him she touched the back of her head, winced, then drew her legs towards her as if she was going to try and stand.

"Who are you?" He spoke lowly, his wand hand, rigid beneath his sleeve, curled around the wooden instrument of destruction, ready to cast a curse at first notice. "What's your name?" Even though looking into her eyes made him feel like he was staring into the eyes of a house elf whose head hung along the house's walls he maintained eye contact. That was the most important thing to do when interrogating someone.

"My name is Luna."

"Right…" His eyes looked her over again. What person would name this sort of child after the moon, after the goddess?

Perhaps she, with her gangly limbs and thin, sharp cut face, was telling the truth then. Because if she wasn't then she was very bold. Almost stupidly so.

"You don't believe me." Her voice was soft, yet there wasn't a hint of disappointment entwined with the words. Her voice (if she did truly talk like that) was very pleasant – serene almost, so very different from the sharpness of Druella's tones.

He shook his head. "How did you get here?" his wand was now trained on her discreetly, but still her eyes wandered down to his wrist, making a few stops along the way he noted with some pleasure.

"I… don't know. One minute I was cleari-" She stopped abruptly, looking up at him from beneath her eyelashes. "What year is this?"

He scowled. "That wasn't an answer."

Still she looked up at him. It was… disconcerting to have this woman look up at him when he knew so little of her. Their positions suggested those of servant and master.

He frowned. "Get up." She was awkward in her movements, nearly falling on her rather nice backside but she stood before him in the end.

He pressed his lips together as he heard voices, separate from the rest of the gathering below, carry up the stairs. They couldn't be seen. Especially not her. She'd be rather lovely if not, as he could see now, clothed in dusty rags, and if she'd heard of personal hygiene. Her hair was an absolute mess; it almost hurt him to look at it. But still… Orion couldn't see her.

_He'd_ found her.

Finders keepers as the saying goes.

"Come with me."

He made his way up the stairs, looking back once to ensure her following. Her cheeks were still tinged pink - he knew that occurred when very pale people blushed; he was from a family of very, very pale people after all.

When Cygnus reached the door of his room – thankfully Orion could appreciate the practice of married couple sleeping in separate rooms, not that he wanted to think upon his cousin and sister even being married, let alone engaging in _those_ _activities_ – he opened it with a flick of his wand. He'd just set one foot inside the room when he stopped.

Looking back at the woman he motioned towards his room, which was dimly lit because of the thick, heavy drapes drawn across the windows blocking direct sunlight from flooding into it.

She smiled at him brightly. His lips quirked into a fleeting half smile in a seemingly automatic response (and he vaguely wondered if she'd _imperio_'d him without his notice but no, he could see her wand sticking out behind her ear. A careless place to put it but maybe she was powerful enough without it…).

"Thank you, Mr. Black." He'd been about to question her knowing his surname (or perhaps make some chivalric comment - or both) when her body brushed against his as she stepped into the room.

His breathing slowed. He felt his heart thumping in his chest. She might not have looked it at her current state but she was definitely growing into her womanly curves. Or maybe she'd stopped already, he didn't know.

He felt oddly lightheaded as he caught a whiff of her scent. Then he shook his head, closed the door, and made his way to the drinks cabinet. He really needed something stronger and more to his preference than what they'd served down below.

She stayed silent as he rummaged in the cabinet for the right drink. When he found it he then cleared the table that was pressed against the wall behind her with a flick of his wand. In the ornate mirror that hung above the table he watched her blurry reflection watch him pour himself a drink and drain it in two draughts.

When he slammed the tumbler down on the table she didn't so much as blink.

As Cygnus turned to face her she tilted her head back, tangled locks swaying to reveal something that looked like… were those _radishes_ hanging from her ears?

"Oh for the love of Merlin." He breathed. Why, just this _once,_ couldn't he have found a nice, normal woman?

Maybe he should go Muggle. A shudder rippled through him, _or maybe _not.

He forced himself to breathe in through his nose, his irritation lessening slightly as he did so. "What _are _those things?"

"Dirigible plums. They enhance the ability to accept the extraordinary."

He felt his eyebrow raise, "Really now?"

"Oh yes. Would you like one? You may be in need of it-"

"No. Thank you." He got the last part out through gritted teeth (he still wasn't sure she hadn't _imperio_'d him, but shouldn't he be more worried?). He poured himself another drink then practically inhaled it. He turned to her once more. "Now, tell me girl, what is your business here?"

Strange women didn't tend to just show up at his cousin and sister's house – or if they did Cygnus had certainly never heard anything of it.

Strange women whose magical backlash made his skin tingle.

What if she had been transported here from someplace?

She'd asked him what year it was.

And the way she looked at him…

"Oh, no business," she smiled, showing crooked teeth as white as the rarely worn pearl earrings that he'd gifted to Druella on their first anniversary. He bet if he gave Luna a gift she'd wear it more than once. "And I'm twenty six so not a girl anymore."

"Oh?" He inquired, tilting his head, perhaps sounding more interested than he should, letting his eyes wander over her strangely clad body (he did hope his descendants or ancestors, whomever, had more dress sense than she). How interesting, he was four years her senior.

_Senior_ – he didn't like that word when applied to himself; it made him feel old, which he most certainly was not.

Superior; now _there_ was a great word.

He leaned as close to her as he dared, which was quite a bit considering she was a strange _woman _he'd only just met, who clearly knew his lineage (though it _was_ obvious just by looking at him; pale skin, dark hair and eyes and all that) and who wore plums on her ears (not matter their so-called magical properties). He licked his lips, feeling a foreign thrill run through him when he saw her eyes follow the slow movement.

He reached out and twined her strange necklace around his first finger. "Tell me, Luna, would you be at all interested in a proposition of mine?"

"That would depend, Cygnus."

He froze then untangled the necklace from around his fingers. His hand fell at his side limply. "How do you know my name?" That was said with equal parts of dangerous poise and confusion. Most acquaintances of his family confused him with Alphard.

She moved a little closer to him. His sharp mind threatened to abandon him in favour of remembering the softness of her scarred skin against his calloused fingers, the feel of her womanly curves brushing against his toned muscles...

_What does she taste like? _he wondered, entranced by her chewing her bottom lip. He snapped out of his thoughts with an inward growl – _focus, damn it_. He took a subtle breath in, narrowed his eyes at her. Forced himself to not think of how red her bottom lip was now coloured from her vigorous nibbling.

Then she answered, "You're a very well-known man, Mr. Black."

His anger subsided like water off a squid's back and he stopped himself from inflating with pride and perhaps even strutting like those damned Malfoy peacocks. "I preferred it when you called me Cygnus."

He shifted his weight on his feet, favouring his right as he rested his right hand on the table beside hers. His hip pressing into the edge of the table, he moved his hand to brush the tips of his fingers against hers.

He gazed at her in the same way that had made many a witch before her melt. She merely smiled. He was caught between damning her and starting to want her all the more for it.

"I do too. You've quite the interesting name."

He leaned forward _just so,_ so their upper bodies _almost_ touched but didn't. It was his favourite tease (away from the eyes of others, of course) an action that had froze a fair number of witches and he wondered when she'd quail. Only a light flush appearing to her neck and cheeks suggested any discomfort. Or amorous feelings.

She was quite the resilient one he'd give her that.

Not at all like Druella, he noted with a sharp lump in his throat, who'd feigned disinterest in him, but he knew she'd wanted him from the start. Unlucky for her the feeling hadn't been mutual. That's why he was still up here; any company was better than her's. And whose fault was that? His mother's. _Anyone else but Druella Rosier_ he'd said, though even he had to admit she was a better choice than Crouch or Lestrange. _Especially_ Lestrange.

"As do you." He murmured in a low voice that'd had many leaning even closer to hear it properly, but not she.

"Your proposition," She whispered, catching his heavy lidded eyes with hers before they dropped to her lips.

He leaned forward, tilting his head with the idea of brushing his lips against hers (a tantalising move sure to break her), when she gasped. He stopped, inches from her face, and frowned.

The few witches he'd kissed had almost always gasped so after he'd actually kissed them, rarely beforehand. Or, he wondered with an odd swoop of his stomach, was she that repulsed by him? No, that couldn't be it. Perhaps she was merely surprised by his daring? But surely she'd seen the signs…

He watched, mystified as she pressed a hand to her stomach, bit her lip. Something rippled across his skin causing him to recoil.

_Was... was she with child?_ That would certainly put a damper on his plans. No mistress of his was going to his bed already sown with another's seed.

Finally he found his voice, though it was but a heartbeat later. "W…what is it, Luna?"

She was biting the inside of her cheek now as she held up her pale, slender hand between them. "I-" her hand – his eyes widened as he took in the scene – her hand started to emit a golden light. What magic was this? "I don't think I'll have time to consider your proposition. I'm sorry, Cygnus." She sounded truly as if in some pain.

Maybe it was through pain of leaving him…? A considerable part of him certainly seemed to hope so, however foolish the notion.

"No." He resumed his place before her. "What – you are returning? To your place of origin?"

"It would seem so."

His stomach twisted. He reached out and grasped her chin, tilting her face up to meet his. Her wide eyes captured him wholly. How had he never paid due notice to them before?

But no matter.

He leaned forward and in one smooth movement brushed his lips against hers. Now her gasp was similar to those of the other witches. It set him at ease. He crushed his lips to hers, delighting in the feel of her tongue when she opened her mouth to him. Was he imagining her tight grasp on the front of his robes? He hoped not.

He pulled her to him, felt her tremble as his teeth grazed her bottom lip. He could feel a moan building in his throat, rumbling from his chest. His breath coming to him in short bursts mingled with those of hers, like someone who couldn't get enough air into their lungs.

Then she was gone. Fading like the light of a star – or the moon – in the sun.

_Cygnus&Luna. _They were both of the heavens, incandescent and of night. He was anchored to her, shining when she did though her light was not her own but reflected from that of the sun's.

Or whatever load of poetic spiel was appropriate for this moment.

He didn't care.

He heard his wife call for him. He smiled grimly at his reflection, fixing himself for the attention of others. People he could care less about.

He left the room and descended into the organised chaos that was the gathering of the _Blacks&allies_.

He could still taste her on his tongue.

He'd never craved peaches and cream more in his life.

**How'd I do? Love it, hate it, leave a review. The box is just down there as I'm sure you can see, so it would much appreciated **especially **(sadly I can **_**not**_** put this in bigger font) if you favourite!**


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